


Glimmer of Light

by irradiatedsoup (dul_cin_ea)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode: s02e08 A Day in the Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:16:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22925518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dul_cin_ea/pseuds/irradiatedsoup
Summary: It was an accident seeing him again, which was lucky honestly because she’d have never gone for it if he’d suggested it that night on the roof.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Glimmer of Light

**Author's Note:**

> Day-in-the-death ﬁclet. This fic was originally posted on livejournal on 29th September 2008, and has been exported from there, so apologies for the (undoubtedly numerous) extremely old errors.

It was an accident seeing him again, which was lucky honestly because she’d have never gone for it if he’d suggested it that night on the roof. She’d been too shaken and tired for any of that right then.

And she’d almost walked straight past him, only really catching a glimpse out of the corner of her eye; something familiar in it making her look again. He was standing out the front of a bakery, staring vacantly at a shelf of bagels, and he’d just looked so stupid that she couldn’t help herself.

‘Look, I know you dead guys don’t have a lot to occupy your time with, but this is a bit sad even for you.’

Owen had turned slightly to look at her and blinked twice, slowly.

‘Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it,’ he’d said, the tiniest smile curling the corners of his mouth. ‘This is dramatic stuﬀ, Maggie.’ He pointed at the glass case. ‘Look, only one loaf of rye left.’

‘Oh right, yeah. Riveting.’

Owen had turned to face her properly. ‘How about a coﬀee, then?’

Of course, he hadn’t drunk his. She’d sipped her long black while he’d made it a personal challenge to see how many sugar packets he could tip into his skinny (‘it’s ironic’, he’d said, ‘I’m being ironic’) latte before it overﬂowed into the saucer. They’d talked about nothing much about anything until the barista had politely asked them to leave because the shop was closing for the night.

They didn’t make any plans to do it again, but when Maggie had turned up at the same time the next week and Owen was there already, she hadn’t been very surprised. He’d laughed at her and she’d called him a wanker.

It became a regular thing after that. Every Tuesday at the coﬀee place on Hope Street. She’d talk about her crappy job and the therapy and her noisy neighbours, and he’d talk about the rift and shape-shifting aliens and night travelers. Owen never asked her not to tell anyone. It was sort of unspoken really, that their meetings were separate to everything else. And, as Maggie thought; if you can’t trust the dead guy that talked you oﬀ a ledge using a glowing pink alien whatsis, then you probably can’t trust anyone.

She told Owen almost everything. She told him when she’d taken up kickboxing. She told him when she starting dating Brendan, and he’d grinned, and then got serious at once.

‘Does he treat you alright?’ He’d asked.

‘Fuck oﬀ, you sound like my mother,’ she’d snapped, and then added: ‘It’s just a couple of dates.’

He’d smiled, twirling another packet of sugar in his good hand. ‘Ah yes, dates. I remember those. Back when dinosaurs still roamed–’

‘Speaking of,’ she’d said, cutting him oﬀ. ‘What about you and Toshiko?’

Owen’s smile had hardened slightly, and he’d looked down at his overﬂowing latte.

‘I’m dead, Maggie,’ he’d said, a cold edge to his voice. ‘I’m not appropriate date material.’ She’d hesitated slightly, then reached across the table and squeezed his bandaged hand. He’d looked at her hand on his, and wrinkled his nose slightly. ‘Are we having a moment? Are you going to cry all over me now?’

Maggie had rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to reach out and swat him. ‘This coming from the guy giving the ’light in the darkness’ speech to every other strange girl on a roof.’

‘That was deep,’ Owen had said, feigning a wounded expression.

‘Seriously–I just think you—. I mean, you’re still here, aren’t you?’ 

He’d shrugged.

‘Well, as far as we know. You could have just had a mental break, and started hallucinating me.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she’d said, still grasping his hand. ‘If I was going to make up some ﬁgment of my imagination, I’d have picked Colin Firth or something, not some whinging, weedy little dead guy.’

Owen had paused for a moment, and then, raising his voice just loud enough so that everyone in the vicinity could hear him, said ‘Look, I don’t care how much you like me, we’re cousins, and that’s just wrong.’

She had laughed til her stomach hurt, and then dragged him outside for a smoke.

And then one Tuesday Owen doesn’t show up. Maggie sits around for several hours, and has three coﬀees while she waits. She folds and unfolds her napkin. She reads the paper, but it’s all full of news about the explosions and creatures and not much else. 

When the shop is closing and he’s still not there, she leaves.

And when she gets to the end of the street she makes a detour.

It’s only been a few months, but it feels like a lot longer since she was up here last time. Since Owen had found her on top of a building, ready to jump. Ready to die, even.

Maggie lingers for a while, watching the lights glowing all over the city, all the way out in the distance. It all seems so much bigger after all the things he told her; now that she knows what’s out there. A ﬂashing orange light catches her attention, and when she peers forward she realizes it’s the clean-up, people still sifting through the rubble and ash of one of the buildings that had been demolished just down the road. It’s hard to see all the scorched marks across Cardiﬀ in the dark; the marks where businesses and homes and people had been, and were now just gone. Empty spaces all over the city.

‘Don’t jump,’ says a small voice.

Maggie turns around, and smiles at the young boy in a beanie, looking up at her, all wide-eyes and concern.

‘I don’t want to,’ she says, making her way back toward the stairs.


End file.
